An estimated 1.7 million people in the United States are confined to wheelchairs. The passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act (1990) has heightened the awareness of the public to the special needs of the physically challenged. These needs however are many and specialized and as yet have not all been addressed.
A particular need of a wheelchair bound individual is the ability to access upper storage units. With storage space a premium in most homes and offices, utilizing only those cabinets accessible to an individual in a wheelchair is unacceptable. Therefore access, by all, to upper cabinets and storage units is essential.
A number of storage units have been devised that allow access to upper cabinets to persons in a wheelchair, short people or those with limited mobility. Kingsborough et al. describe a storage cabinet in which shelves are carried by pivotally mounted arms which allow the shelf to be swung outwardly and downwardly while maintaining a substantially horizontal attitude (U.S. Pat. No. 4,915,461). A cabinet having inner and outer cabinet assemblies provides access to cabinet contents when the inner assembly is mechanically lowered from the fixed outer cabinet assembly (U.S. Pat. No. 5,076,649). Schneller describes a pivotally mounting means by which the interior shelving or the entire cabinet can be swung down to an accessible height (U.S. Pat. No. 3,857,623). Pivotally mounted cabinet units which mount above a stairway (U.S. Pat. No. 4,026,434) or onto and behind a wall (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,076,351 and 5,228,763, respectively) have also been described. Several of these units are motorized. Each unit however is based upon a pivot assembly which can be unstable, wear quickly and be unsafe. From the foregoing, it is apparent that there continues to be a need for accessible cabinet assemblies which are strong, reliable and safe.
The subject invention provides a cabinet assembly which can be moved reversibly from one position to another. In a preferred embodiment of the subject invention, a cabinet housing moves along a track on roller guide bearings. The cabinet assembly of the subject invention is particularly useful when installed as an upper storage unit in a kitchen. In a specific embodiment, the cabinet housing moves from a position adjacent an upper wall to a position away from that wall and down toward a countertop. This permits easy access of the cabinet""s contents to an individual in a wheelchair. The cabinet housing can then be moved up off the countertop back against the wall freeing counter space for use. Preferably, the cabinet housing is moved by a motorized hoist.